CUSTOMS chiefs today pledged to remain vigilant after a Danish businessman was jailed for smuggling cocaine worth more than #300,000 into Durham Tees Valley Airport.

They spoke out after Jan Dedichen was jailed for eight-and-a-half years on his 65th birthday yesterday.

Locking him up at Teesside Crown Court, Judge John Walford called for a tightening of controls at regional airports.

The judge told Dedichen: “The Class A drugs which you brought into this country in this quantity would have blighted many lives and would have enriched the evil and unscrupulous, and it’s for that reason there has to be a substantial sentence.”

Today David Odd, HM Revenue & Customs head of investigation, said security at airports is already solid - and this haul proved it.

He said: “HM Revenue & Customs officers at the UK’s airports and ports are extremely vigilant and we are determined to stop all drugs reaching our streets.

“The removal of a significant amount of cocaine from the criminal supply chain shows our commitment to reduce the availability of harmful drugs on the streets of Teesside.”

The court was told that Dedichen had flown in to Durham Tees Valley Airport from Amsterdam on December 20 after travelling from Nairobi in Kenya. Three-and-a-half kilos of cocaine worth #315,000 was found in a brown tape-wrapped package in a soft-sided suitcase.

He was arrested and a field test carried out at the airport reacted positively for cocaine. It was later found to be 55%.

Dedichen, who runs a company involved in the biofuels industry in Africa, was planning to travel on to London to link up with a senior figure in the drugs ring, said prosecutor Andrew Stubbs for Customs.

He had made nine previous flights to the UK using the regional airports of Humberside, Leeds-Bradford and Durham Tees Valley, the court heard.

Mr Stubbs said telephone records showed that Dedichen was in contact with two other male suspects before he left Africa, on arrival in UK regional airports and when he checked into a hotel in Stratford, East London.

He claimed at first that he was in the UK for talks with a supermarket group to discuss biofuels, but the company he named had no knowledge of him.

He pleaded guilty yesterday after he was served with mobile phone records linking him with a more senior figure in London.

He admitted being knowingly involved in the fraudulent evasion of the prohibition on the importation of cocaine into the UK.

He was carrying #2,400 in cash which was ordered to be paid towards the costs of the case.

Martin Mulgrew, defending, said it was “nothing short of a tragedy” that a man of his age, hitherto good character and unblemished work record found himself in court on his 65th birthday for such an offence.

He said Dedichen was a courier for more sophisticated operators in the ring.

He had a Ugandan wife who was financially dependent upon him.

When he was strip-searched at the airport he told a male officer: “I’m telling you I have never tried anything like this before.”